by Jennifer Jacobs, The Des Moines Register

by Jennifer Jacobs, The Des Moines Register

DES MOINES, Iowa -- None of the early-voting states that do the bulk of the work of picking the next president of the United States have laws to block state elected officials from taking money hand over fist from campaigns.

That prompts questions about the integrity of the first-in-the-nation votes.

Iowa's sister early states of New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada have no laws or ethics rules on campaign pay for legislators or other state politicians, which gives the impression that their influence is for sale, critics say.

Only the Iowa Senate weighs in on the matter, and then only in a fuzzily written ethics rule for senators' behavior, not in state law.

The debate over for-hire politics jumped to the forefront earlier this year, when a Senate ethics complaint was filed against Republican state Sen. Kent Sorenson. He is accused of being paid by Republican U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign and of trying to hide it because he knew it was an ethics violation.

The Senate rule clearly prohibits employment with political action committees but is interpreted by some to have a loophole that allows working for a candidate.

But the Senate Ethics Committee has historically interpreted the rule to mean a senator or senator-elect can be paid only by his or her own campaign, and no one else's, Marshall said.

Separately, Iowa statutes require elected officials to disclose sources of income. But the information officials provide is so vague it's nearly impossible to determine whether they were paid by campaigns. Sorenson's filing for 2011 said he was paid for "consulting," but he didn't specify for whom.

Experts in ethics and politics as well as elected officials themselves differ on the general philosophy of whether elected office holders should be prohibited from accepting payments for their work to manipulate the caucus vote.

One perspective: There's nothing wrong with Iowa as a whole profiting from being at the center of the political universe every four years, but when politicians' personal bank accounts get padded for supporting a candidate, it "poisons trust," said Debra Satz, a professor of ethics, philosophy and political science at Stanford University.

And another: Elected officials earn modest salaries - $100 a year for New Hampshire legislators, $8,777 in Nevada, and $12,000 in South Carolina. In Iowa, it's about $40,000, counting per-diem pay in the session and a constituent service allowance. Legislators are permitted to earn income outside of their jobs as office holders, so "one would need good reasons to prohibit paid campaign work," said John Chamberlin, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan.

Caution urged

One South Carolina politics insider, Katon Dawson, thinks that what's acceptable in the other early states could be fraught with danger in Iowa. Iowa's precarious first-in-line status bestows outsized influence, he noted, and its caucuses have regularly come under heavy fire.

It's rare for South Carolina elected officials to pocket campaign pay, but "it wouldn't bother anybody if they did," said Dawson, a former chairman of the South Carolina GOP. "Why would people get involved in the Republican Party if they can't get involved in elections?"

Some of the criticism centers on the Iowa Straw Poll, a Republican Party fundraiser, Dawson said. Candidates and handlers alike have felt "like they were rolled" by the Republican Party of Iowa, which charges campaigns money to rent space for the event and requires participating voters to buy tickets to access a ballot, he said.

"They said, 'I just don't want to go back,'" he said. "Iowa has a special place, but there are times when that special place is tenuous."

And unlike the Iowa Straw Poll or Iowa's caucuses, Dawson said, the vote in South Carolina is "a real primary."

"We're counting votes - 400,000 to 600,000 votes - and you can't go and have a redo," he said, referring to the Iowa Republican caucuses' controversial 2012 results. The GOP caucuses lured a record 121,503 voters, but the extraordinarily close results triggered confusion over the true winner and a fresh wave of national criticism.

Former Republican state Rep. Renee Schulte said perception is important.

"Any time you go first in anything, you're a leader, and when you're a leader, you have to be concerned about reputation," she said.

The Romney campaign paid Schulte $1,000 a month for her work during the 2008 cycle, before she was elected to the Legislature. By the 2012 cycle, she was in the Iowa House, where the ethics rules allow presidential campaign paychecks. But Schulte, a member of Romney's Iowa inner circle, "did not get paid a dime" the second time around, she said.

Nearly all refused pay

Dozens of Iowa elected officials endorsed and did legwork in support of GOP presidential campaigns during the 2012 election cycle, but in interviews with The Des Moines Register, all but one - Republican Erik Helland - said they weren't paid directly or indirectly, other than for travel or incidental expenses.

Most were loath even to talk about the issue in the wake of the Sorenson ethics complaint.

Republican Tim Pawlenty's campaign paid Helland, a Johnston-area legislator at the time, a total of $27,846 during the Iowa caucus season, federal records show.

"It's tricky, but you can do it, as long as there's no conflict with your role with the state, and you serve your constituents and do your duties as a state legislator," said Helland, who was state director for Pawlenty's Iowa effort from May to mid-August 2011.

Iowa law requires transparency when it comes to state elected officials' sources of income, but information lawmakers have filed reveals little.

A Register check shows no legislators acknowledged taking a paycheck from a campaign or PAC in the 2012 cycle.

Some lawmakers make a habit of being as vague as possible, the disclosure reports show.

Like many others, Helland simply jotted down a few words on his report for 2011: "self-employed consulting" and "legal/compliance." He made no reference to the Pawlenty campaign work.

Several Iowa lawmakers said they believe it's ethically sound to accept campaign pay, but chose not to do so.

For the 2012 cycle, Kim Pearson and Glen Massie, state representatives at the time, said the Ron Paul campaign wanted them on its payroll. Both said they turned down the money.

"I was doing it (campaign work) because I really was concerned for my country, and I thought he was the best answer," said Massie, a Warren County Republican. Massie said he lost money, burning through vacation days from his diesel technician job to fly around in a campaign jet to introduce Paul at Iowa events.

Iowa House Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer said she was not compensated, directly or indirectly, for serving as Republican Newt Gingrich's 2012 Iowa chairman. She said she was more of a figurehead than a daily staffer. Her role was to make connections for Gingrich in Iowa, and, on one occasion, to travel to Florida to campaign for him, not to do daily full-time work, she said.

Gingrich's American Solutions PAC contributed at least $100,000 to the Iowa House Majority Fund in the 2010 cycle - but before Upmeyer became his chairman.

Even the two chambers in the Iowa Legislature don't agree on whether presidential campaign payments to their members should be prohibited.

Sorenson, who used to be in the Iowa House, would have faced no ethics complaint if he hadn't switched chambers. House rules prohibit members from working for state PACs and candidates, but they can work for federal ones.

Elected officials themselves aren't always certain what the rules are.

Asked to weigh in on the ethics of campaign pay, Democrat Mike Fitzgerald, who has been state treasurer for 30 years, said he received no paychecks for his work with Team Obama.

"If the law says it's not allowed, it's not allowed," he said.

Nothing in state law prohibits elected officials from accepting employment from a presidential campaign.